New Orleans is the city associated with Anna Travis’s college life at Tulane and her growing distance from Ted. Though the city is mostly encountered from afar, it becomes the setting against which Ted’s unreturned longing intensifies and their phone calls take on an imagined intimacy.

Anna’s College Departure

A week before Anna leaves for Tulane in New Orleans, her parents host a large farewell party. Anna has arranged the gathering as a performance for Marco Hernandez, appearing in a lace dress with a deep neckline, high heels, and elaborate makeup, her red hair pinned up. Ted moves through the party acutely aware of his place as her admiring friend, and of how exposed his feelings may be to everyone there. New Orleans marks the departure that takes Anna out of their familiar, face-to-face friendship.

Distance and Contact

After Anna leaves, Ted expects his feelings to ease, but her physical absence makes her presence in his thoughts more conspicuous. He checks his email each morning for a message from her and collects amusing incidents throughout the day to tell her. When they do speak, Anna describes a tangle of college problems: Marco, a fraternity man who treated her badly, a conflict with her father’s new wife, a war with her roommate, and the risk of expulsion because she is not taking exams. Her account reveals how isolated she feels; she tells Ted that nobody from home has called and that even people who seem to have many friends can discover they have been forgotten when they need help.

The City as an Imagined Presence

New Orleans rarely appears as a place Ted knows directly. In a late-night call, after they exchange goodnights, he imagines Anna at the other end of the line in the city’s humid night, watching him or touching herself while thinking of him. He listens to her breathing and masturbates quietly, then whispers that he loves her before hanging up. The scene makes the distance between them both practical and inward: New Orleans is where Anna lives, but Ted’s imagined version of her increasingly fills the space left by their limited real contact.